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Appreciation 
John Entwistle, The Who's Who Of Bass Players 
By David Segal
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, June 29, 2002; Page C01 

A concert by the Who typically looked like a death
match for attention fought by a trio of psychopaths.
Pete Townshend would windmill-strum, then shatter his
guitar into splinters. Roger Daltrey strutted and
tossed his microphone in whirling, look-at-me arcs.
Keith Moon flailed on his drum kit, which he'd
occasionally douse with water for splashy visual
effect, or -- on one memorable occasion in 1967 --
load up with explosives and detonate.

But then there was John Entwistle. At a glance, it
seemed that the Who's implacable bass player, who died
Thursday at the age of 57, had opted out of this
spotlight melee. He stood as inert as plywood, his
head turned slightly to keep an eye on the
pandemonium, his bass strapped to his shoulder as
firmly as a shingle. He was impervious to chaos, a
bystander at a five-car pileup staring at the crushed
metal and ignoring the sirens. He seemed more like a
maitre d' than a rocker.

Unless you closed your eyes. Then you realized that
Entwistle actually was brawling with his band mates.
It's just that his efforts at one-upmanship began and
ended with his fingers and the fleet, fluid notes he
pounded from his bass. Entwistle ran riot on his
instrument in a way that few rock bassists have ever
tried. Before him, bass players were self-effacing and
minimal. They filled the low end of the audio
spectrum, added accents, kept the beat and minded
their own business.

Entwistle could get spare when necessary, but for all
of his stoic airs, he had the soul of a showoff. "The
role of the lead guitarist was the most glamorous to
me," he once said. But he preferred the sound of a
bass, and he lucked into a band with a guitarist
perennially insecure about his own abilities as a lead
player. If any other act had written "My Generation,"
there'd have been a blazing guitar solo in the middle.
Instead, Entwistle's bass tumbles through the stops of
that 1965 anthem, probably the most famous bass break
in rock history.

He died of a heart attack at the Hard Rock Hotel in
Las Vegas, just a day before the Who were slated to
start a new tour. Yesterday, Townshend and Daltrey
announced that the shows would go on as scheduled as
of Monday.

The group didn't say who would face the formidable
task of filling Entwistle's role onstage. A brief news
release signed by the band's manager, Bill Curbishley,
said: "Both Daltrey and Townshend view the tour as a
'tribute to John Entwistle,' and to the loss of an
irreplaceable friend. The Entwistle family is in full
support of the decision to continue and feel this is
what John would have wanted." 

Having lost Keith Moon to a drug overdose in 1978, the
group is now left with just two members of its
original lineup. The passing of Entwistle also stills
the other half of a rhythm section as musically
volatile and imaginative as any that rock has
produced.

Known as Ox to friends, Entwistle was one of those
rare musicians more admired than imitated, if only
because re-creating his polychromatic style was too
tricky. Every once in a while, you'll hear bass guitar
runs that burble in melodic and diffuse directions and
realize that somebody has been studying the album
"Who's Next." Listen to the Cars hit "Bye Bye Love,"
for instance -- it's almost a homage.

Mostly, though, his contribution was in elevating the
idea of what the bass could do, the role that it could
play; he pushed it to the front of the stage and the
front of the mix. This wasn't a single-handed
accomplishment. Paul McCartney helped, as did Jack
Bruce of Cream, James Jamerson of Motown, as well as
Brian Wilson, whose bass lines for the Beach Boys'
"Pet Sounds" seem to broaden the very vocabulary of
pop. Entwistle was perhaps the most unbridled of the
bunch. Later bands such as the Jam and the Minutemen
didn't crib specific passages from him so much as
embrace his expanded view of the instrument and apply
it to their sound.

Entwistle's relationship with Daltrey, Moon and
Townshend was rocky, to say the least. He said that at
one point in the late '60s, he quit the Who every two
weeks, and he nearly accepted Jimi Hendrix's
invitation to play with him, full time. "I had to say
no because it was a good week with the Who," he
quipped. He had a variation of George Harrison's
problem: He'd write songs, a few of which would make
the Who's albums -- "Boris the Spider," "Heaven and
Hell" and "My Wife, for example," were all his -- but
most of his compositions were passed over. He claimed,
unconvincingly, that he didn't really mind, for a
reason that startles: "I never really wanted the Who
to do more of my songs because I thought at the time
they would mess them up," he says in the liner notes
to a Rhino Records compilation of his solo work.

Even his best material, however, paled next to the
music of Townshend, one of pop's greatest and most
ambitious songwriters. In 1971, Entwistle became the
first member of the Who to release a solo album,
"Smash Your Head Against the Wall," an apparent
reflection of his growing frustration with
second-fiddle status. Unburdened by the Who,
Entwistle's mordant humor shone through in songs, as
did a theatrical bent that led him to sing as other
characters -- often unsympathetic ones. "Apron
Strings," from 1972's "Whistle Rymes," for instance,
is sung by a guy who selfishly complains that his
mother's death is going to make his life harder. "The
Window Shopper," from the same album, is a confession
by an unrepentant peeping Tom.

Offstage as well as on, he was sedate and retiring by
the Who's standards. You can watch "The Kids Are
Alright," a 1979 documentary about the band, and
emerge without a clue about the guy's personality or
passions, aside from his affection for a sprawling
collection of instruments. He spent his down time
fishing, or drawing, or collecting "Star Trek" tapes
and brass instruments and hanging around the nine dogs
he kept at one time on his property.

Given the circumstances, he seemed like a pretty
ordinary guy -- at least before the lights went down
and the Who began to rumble. Then, gentlemanly
appearances to the contrary, he didn't so much play as
pillage, invading songs one melodic bar at a time,
with elegant riffs that ran curlicues around vocal
melodies. On the classic "Bargain," for instance,
Entwistle gradually wrests control of the tune, and by
the time Townshend sings "I know I'm nothing without
you," Entwistle is in full mesmerizing gear.

He threw elbows, in his own quiet way, without ever
punishing the songs or trying to dazzle for the sake
of dazzling. He'll be remembered for doing something
that seems impossible: anchoring the Who and shoving
them into overdrive at the very same time.

) 2002 The Washington Post Company


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